The Silent Forest

by Guy Sheppard

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘In your own time.’

  ‘According to Welsh legend the cursed prince Culhwch can only marry the beautiful Olwen and no other. He falls head over heels in love with her but she is the daughter of the cruel giant Ysbaddaden Bencawr. The giant is under a curse himself should Olwen ever get wed. He therefore sets Culhwch an impossible challenge – he must comb the giant’s hair and beard in preparation for the wedding ceremony, but only one combination of shears, comb and razor exists in the whole world that will cut such coarse locks. These magical instruments reside in the bristles of the enchanted Twrch Trwyth. The Welsh word ‘Twrch’ signifies wild boar or hog, so Twrch Trwyth means ‘the boar Trwyth’. To cut a long story short, Culhwch enlists the help of the famous King Arthur and his knights of The Round Table who retrieve the magical articles in battle, one after the other. But Twrch Trwyth escapes via the River Severn to Cornwall where he runs into the sea.’

  ‘You trying to tell me Sam believes this mythical monster lives in the Forest of Dean?’

  ‘On account of all the lurid stories that his grandfather keeps telling him.’

  Jo held her glass of stout to her lips, thought of her baby and promptly drank its health.

  ‘Why now? Why here?’

  ‘Why not? The Forest is an ancient place absolutely riddled with caves and tunnels. Twrch Trwyth could have returned to take refuge there. Who’s to say such a cunning, treacherous beast doesn’t know the way right down into the underworld? Who’s to say it won’t lead some unsuspecting person to their doom there? In a ten-year-old’s childish mind, that is.’

  John raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Imagine that.’

  ‘As I said, once Sam gets hold of an idea he runs with it and won’t let it go. His father blames it on his ‘illness’. He can’t bear his pedantry, as he calls it, whereas I think Sam’s pre-occupation with narrow interests is simply part of who he is.’

  John shook his head.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be concerned? When did he start drawing his monsters, exactly?’

  Freya ran her tongue round her sore gum.

  ‘I found the first one shortly after I told him that I was going to leave James.’

  ‘Because he treats you and Sam so badly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jo and John traded more dark looks. Well, that wasn’t so difficult, was it? Before, Freya had been downright obstructive, but now there was no stopping her?

  ‘Go on,’ said Jo, gently.

  Freya looked at them both and then her wristwatch, again.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll agree that appearances can be deceptive, Jo. My husband can be friendly and jovial – the life and soul of the party. We once made a good couple, he and I. Also, he lost a parent in tragic circumstances just like me – I felt he was the only person who understood what I was going through at the time. It meant I no longer felt like a lost cause.’

  ‘A lost cause? Surely not?’

  ‘When my father was injured down his coal mine, things became very hard for him and my mother. My birth came along just at the wrong time. Mum managed to work in a grocer’s shop to help pay for clothes for me and for my brother, Simon – we struggled on for a few years when the bank foreclosed on the loan against the house with only one month’s notice. That’s when things went from bad to worse. We were all set to be made homeless and my father couldn’t secure a new loan based on his health and employment history. He became very hostile and moody, even violent. My parents had endless rows. Then one day my mother called him ‘bloody useless’. She just lashed out. Of course I was still only a child – not yet ten. I had no idea how depressed she’d been ever since having me and I never thought she’d let me down. She didn’t even leave a note to explain. That’s why I don’t think she planned anything, I think she suddenly saw a way out and took it.’

  John cracked a knuckle.

  ‘Her life might have been in crisis but so was yours. She had no right to put the blame on you.’

  ‘I saw the whole thing. She stepped off the platform as the freight train steamed through Gloucester railway station. She was sliced to pieces under its wheels. But I didn’t shed any tears. Not that I remember. Instead I hated her for making me see her like that. For ruining my life. I couldn’t think straight any more – I couldn’t bear to be in my own home.’

  ‘How was it your fault?’ asked Jo.

  ‘I ran away twice as soon as I reached my teens.’

  ‘Naturally you were frightened.’

  ‘Not frightened but furious. I wanted to hit back at the world because she hadn’t loved me enough to stay with me. I decided to rebel by not doing what I most wanted. I guess I was really hurting myself.’

  ‘That’s when you met James?’

  ‘He was much older than me. Twenty-four years older in fact. But he was like a king. Charming. Generous. Considerate. He made me feel secure. He was already making big money from his various businesses. He was the man my father should have been. In the beginning it was wonderful because so many people admired and respected us. He wore good clothes and talked very well and he wasn’t at all bad looking. Other people hung on his every word. He’s an absolute wiz at the foxtrot, one-step and waltz.’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I fell pregnant in 1933. I was fifteen.’

  ‘You were underage. He committed a crime. Are you sure he didn’t coerce or threaten you to get what he wanted?’

  ‘Oh no, we were madly in love. I left school to be with him.’

  ‘You might think that he didn’t force you to do what he wanted…’

  ‘He never laid a finger on me. Not then.’

  ‘…but he may have been controlling you psychologically because you were so young. He might have used his money to manipulate you emotionally?’

  ‘Of course I’d say that now. Whatever it was, I did believe I was doing the right thing. Haven’t you ever been madly in love, Jo?’

  ‘….’

  ‘James was my protection from the world.’

  ‘Didn’t your father intervene, at all?’

  ‘He totally took to drink for a while.’

  ‘Sorry to ask. What about you? Were you into anything as well?’

  ‘James gave me some of his cocaine now and again.’

  ‘Wasn’t that crazy?’

  ‘Not to me it wasn’t. It made me forget.’

  ‘Stop me if I’m wrong, but no one else stepped in to help you?’

  Freya licked her split lip.

  ‘When dad slipped behind with the rent yet again, James was very good to him. He found him a room in one of his rented properties in Gloucester for a while.’

  ‘So if you stopped being nice to James he would stop helping your father,’ said John, butting in.

  ‘I never thought of it like that, not at the time.’

  ‘Why would you?’

  ‘As I say, I was madly in love.’

  ‘And you? Where did you live?’

  ‘I moved into Drake’s House with James. In some ways it was idyllic down by the river.’

  ‘You don’t sound too certain.’

  ‘The railway line runs between house and river. It’s how Sam came to love trains, even if it did remind me too much of other things. I’d lie awake at night and feel the bed shake as heavy coal trains passed by from South Wales. In the end I’d had enough of being stuck at home all the time and badgered James to let me start training to become a nurse.’

  ‘Let you?’

  ‘He agreed to pay someone to look after Sam, but then, a year later, I fell pregnant again.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a bit careless?’ said John.

  ‘Shit happens. Anyway, isn’t contraception a man’s responsibility?’

  ‘In all honesty, yes.’

  ‘When the nursing college found out they didn’t want me. A mother’s place is in the home, they said. I wasn’t f
eeling too well – I was suffering badly from morning sickness.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Jo.

  ‘By then James was holding parties for businessmen and their wives on a yacht in Bristol’s Floating Harbour. Expensive holidays abroad were already the norm. Fast cars, too. He’d also joined the Freemasons. And, as I say, we had the historic home by the river. What more did I need? Then out of the blue he bought me this gorgeous diamond ring you see on my finger. He said we must be married straightaway because people were talking.’

  ‘How did that go?’

  ‘I had a lot to lose because the new baby was due any day. I had no job. No qualifications. I got scared, I suppose. I thought I was doing it because James loved me and it would also be best for Sam. That’s when it all started to go wrong. I wrote myself – my needs – out of the equation. Then, to cap it all, my baby was born dead. It was a boy. More horror followed. Come Easter last year Simon was killed when a bomb hit the bus park at Gloster Aircraft Factory. He was twenty-eight. It came as a terrible shock to lose my only brother like that, even though we hadn’t seen much of each other for a while because he couldn’t stand the sight of James. I’ve wanted to curl up and die ever since. I don’t want to sleep in the same bed as my husband and he hates me for it. Fuels his violence. It’s my cowardice that has kept me caged for so long.’

  Jo sat back, overwhelmed. She remembered how she’d felt when she’d lost everything. The horror of it.

  Then the silence.

  That awful silence – when the screams stopped coming from the rubble.

  God, what she’d do to go back now.

  If only she’d been stronger and braver.

  If only she’d had the strength of a giant.

  To move collapsed walls and lift burning timbers.

  ‘But you refuse to be trapped by the past any longer, right?’

  Freya gave Ruby a kiss on the ear.

  ‘One day, out of curiosity, I had a rifle through James’s desk. He caught me and beat me black and blue. I was stunned. This was the man who said he adored me. At the time I kind of blamed myself – I shouldn’t have been looking through his business correspondence, should I? Of course he was sorry and deeply ashamed afterwards. He bought me a rare 1933 Riley Lynx Tourer to make up.’

  ‘But since then the blows have kept on coming?’ said John.

  ‘As I say, James in the beginning was bloody marvellous. But that’s just on the surface. Underneath he can be… well… a bit of a pig.’

  Jo leaned in.

  ‘But now things have become utterly intolerable?’

  John kicked her ankle.

  ‘One thing at a time.’

  Freya ignored the kerfuffle.

  ‘James’s plan to send Sam for experimental medical treatment in America has been the last straw. I’d reached a complete low over it when my old school friend Sarah Smith offered to help me. She might no longer work for James, she said, but she knew bad things about him. Very bad. If we stood together we could bring him down, but first I had to get out his house. Be safe. Sam, too. She said she could help us both escape.’

  ‘She had proof of James dealing in black market timber, for instance?’

  ‘Worse. Much worse.’

  ‘Which means what, exactly?’

  ‘When the time was right she would reveal all, Sarah said, but it would mean that James would have no choice but to pay up as well as give me a divorce.’

  ‘But Sarah died.’

  ‘Yes, she did.’

  Jo tried to see past Freya’s injuries for a moment. For too long she had thought they might be the result of a car accident, but not now. While graceful and stylish, her clothes clung to her spare frame like an extra skin. There was an elegance to her that bordered on the severe. The result was something pleasingly simple, even austere. Black would always do that to a person, yet her body exhibited a strange impatience – it strained to throw off its enforced, elegiac understatement. Something wild swelled inside all the constriction. She wondered if the wearing of mourning clothes was not only because she missed her dead friend, but would stubbornly protest her right to do so. The question was indisputable. Black was so uncompromising; it came across as an act of resistance. She knew first-hand how a person could become irreconcilable to the fact of losing someone in whom they’d invested so much love and hope.

  Perhaps that’s why she had never worn black herself, thought Jo. She hadn’t wanted to admit it was all over.

  It fell to John to break the awkward hiatus.

  ‘Is that the reason your suitcase was in Sarah’s car on the night she died?’

  Freya nodded eagerly – almost too eagerly.

  ‘Sarah was going to take me and Sam to a place of safety in Hereford.’

  ‘She was helping you that much?’

  ‘I couldn’t do it alone.’

  ‘But things didn’t go according to plan.’

  ‘I managed to smuggle a few of Sam’s belongings out of Drake’s House the day before our departure, but I couldn’t take much of my own in case James noticed. He’s always poking about in my wardrobe because he likes to tell me what to wear whenever we go anywhere in public. I couldn’t have him see half empty cupboards, could I? I had to settle for a few mementoes and essentials. Honestly, I didn’t want all those fancy shoes and smart clothes any more anyway. Too many of them had been bought with his fists and I didn’t want to feel beholden to him for another minute.’

  ‘Bold move.’

  Freya’s grim expression grew grimmer.

  ‘I thought I could walk to Sarah at the end of the road just up from the river…’

  ‘But you thought wrong?’

  ‘Yes I did. I had my hand on the front door when James appeared and said he wanted to take Sam deer poaching in the Forest. I had to come up with a lie in a moment, so I said that my father was ill again – he has bad lungs ever since his days spent digging coal. I said I had to take Sam to see him that evening, that I might stay over, hence the suitcase. I’d done it before.’

  Jo watched his beer grow warm in the cellar’s smoky and muggy atmosphere and wondered if Freya ever shed a tear.

  ‘You took a risk he’d believe you?’

  ‘Illness or no illness, he wouldn’t let Sam travel with me. They were going hunting and that was that.’

  ‘So you had to leave him behind to maintain your lie.’

  ‘What would you have done?’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘James watched me depart in my Riley. I drove alone up the hill from Drake’s House to the end of the road, as arranged. Of course Sarah wanted me to follow her red Austin Seven there and then, all the way to Hereford, but I was sure James had arranged for someone to follow me, just as he liked to listen in to all my phone calls. I had no alternative but to go to my father’s place at Tunnel Cottage. Otherwise my cover would be blown. Sarah and I had a big row about it. There was no one following me, she said, I was being paranoid. Perhaps she was right, but when you haven’t led your own life for such a long time, your sense of what’s real and what isn’t begins to blur. As far as I’m concerned James always knows where I am to the minute – he has eyes everywhere. I couldn’t take any chances. He’s in my head. I threw my suitcase at Sarah and drove off. I said I’d call her again soon, that I couldn’t leave without Sam. I didn’t want James to come after us, I couldn’t risk a dangerous chase through the Forest.’

  Jo leaned in further. Breathed softly.

  ‘But James did go in pursuit? He chased Sarah?’

  Freya paled.

  ‘All I know is that he acted far too normally that night. He didn’t even ask to look in my suitcase, he simply took my word for it that all I had with me were a few nightclothes. He knew my plan, I’m sure. Perhaps he’d known all along?’

  John flexed his hand. Cracked more knuckles. He looked Jo then Freya in the eye –her dry, unblinking eyes.

  ‘What a
re we going to do about Sam?’

  ‘John’s right,’ said Jo, ‘Sam needs our help. So do you. We have to get you both to safety right now.’

  ‘It might be too late.’

  ‘But if we can help?’

  ‘And then? How will James react, do you suppose?’

  ‘Give yourself a chance.’

  ‘This isn’t a game, Jo. He can do things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘I’ve already said too much.’

  ‘Think of Sam. There’s no good to be had by staying silent any longer.’

  Freya seized Ruby, as if to leave at once. That glassy, empty glint in her gaze was in direct contrast to the nervous smile on her lips as she read the time on her watch for the umpteenth time.

  ‘If you do help me he might kill you.’

  Jo gave a quick smile, too.

  ‘John and I have risked our necks several times already.’

  ‘Then follow me.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going to the Forest while there’s still hope.’

  FIFTY

  Whatever he did next, he mustn’t vomit.

  Not right now.

  Sam clutched his belly with both hands, bent double and opened his mouth wide.

  Did he have a choice?

  Did it feel like he did?

  He really shouldn’t get so worked up, but it wasn’t that simple. Otherwise he stood like a statue next to his father in the ice-forest, as he squinted sideways through the 1000-yard sight on top of his B.S.A. Lee Enfield – he’d already seen him upload a Mark VI cartridge into the breach. Another nine rested in the gun’s magazine.

  Then James fired.

  As did the other hunters.

  The first stag dropped like a stone. A chill crept into Sam’s hands, feet and tongue. Any terror at the unfairness of the contest soon changed to awe. As for the other animal, one bullet sheared an antler and another clipped its flank; it staggered sideways, tripped, then began to run.

  Already James had his next round ready to fire. He was trying to take proper aim to make a second kill more likely.

  ‘This one’s mine. Come on, Sam, let’s go get it.’